How Come?
by child-of-scorpio
Summary: They don't trust me any more. I can see it in their eyes. The memories of yesterday undermined by the realities of today. One-shot.


**How Come?**

**Disclaimer: **Well…let me see….do I look like JKR? Nope. Have I written a best-selling world-famous series of books? Nope. Did I create these characters? Nope. So, everything except the plot ISN'T mine.

**Summary:** Just a little one-shot that I wrote in half an hour after being inspired by a song. I'm warning you, I wrote this with a serious headache, so I'm not guaranteeing the readability of this – it flowed out and I didn't bother going back to recheck.

-&-

They don't trust me any more.

I can see it in their eyes.

How did it come to this?

Once, we were like four brothers. Completely inseparable. We all had each other's back when we did anything, we all planned out pranks together and did our detentions together, even after I became a Prefect and James was made Head Boy. And now, I look back, back to the times we shared in Hogwarts, back to the time in fifth year when they literally broke the law, turning into Animagi just to stay with me on full moons, and I wonder if it ever really happened, or if it was just some highly elaborate dream.

It's like I'm looking through a book – the book of my life. I'm searching back for the chapters when I was at Hogwarts, with the greatest friends I ever had, and the words are erasing themselves from the pages as I watch. All my memories of yesterday, slowly undermined by the realities of today.

I met them in Diagon Alley the other day. James and Sirius, that is. They're the only two still closer than anything, sharing a flat, even though Lily asked if James wanted to move in with her. But James wouldn't leave Sirius. It's a remainder of the loyalty we once all shared.

Me? I moved out a year ago. I don't remember why now. Pete's gone a lot too, but he still visits us all whenever he's around.

Anyway, I walked into the two of them outside Quality Quidditch Supplies. We saw each other, and for a moment, I wanted to turn around and walk in the opposite direction. But I had to walk over, and we hugged each other.

It wasn't the same, though. There's no feeling any more. It wasn't the love of a best friend that came through; it was the protocol of a greeting. And when we talked, it was just for five minutes, before we ended up in an awkward silence, which James broke when he said he had to go to Gringotts before meeting Lily off her shift at Mungo's. So we said our goodbyes, and I was left on my own outside the glass-fronted shop.

It hurts.

It hurts that those two people, who were my best friends for years, now stand and make small talk, like polite acquaintance, outside a shop, which, before, we would have rushed into at the first opportunity. I remember all the times, from age eleven to age seventeen, when Quality Quidditch Supplies was our first stop whenever we all came into London. I remember the time Peter broke a huge broom display when we came in one summer. I remember coming in here for Sirius' birthday present, year after year, and I remember the time James once spent three hours choosing a broomstick polish, the rest of us moaning and pretending to die from lack of ice-cream to get him out.

That's all gone now.

All the time we talked, I could see them checking their words. Making sure they didn't give away any information that I didn't need to know. I'm a member of the Order too, but I know Dumbledore's worried there's a spy amongst us, and I'm not stupid. I can read my best friends better than I can read myself.

They think it's me.

I suppose it's a logical thing to assume. Voldemort, formerly Tom Riddle, the Dark Lord; Remus Lupin, occupational werewolf, a Dark creature; it make sense to put the two together. If you're not someone who knows me. I don't know about Dumbledore, but those two think that _I'm_ the spy.

They don't come for my transformations any more, either. They used to, but then they stopped, on the pretext of Auror training. I know it's not true. They know it's not true. I'm still calmer – I've been taking a new potion called the Wolfsbane Potion, which allows me to keep my mind when I transform and wait out the night curled up in a corner, a harmless wolf. Yet even my wolfish mind bears the memories of the musky brown coat of a stag, the joyful bark of a big, shaggy, black dog.

I miss them.

I'm barely in touch with them any more. Whenever I go to an Order meeting, my seat is always away from theirs, and I'm usually the last to arrive and the first to leave. I have no time for polite chitchat with those who have no time for me.

They used to have time for me. Not any more. No longer do I get owls dropping in at any time of day or night, making plans for us. No longer do I see those random bits of parchment, with James' or Sirius' messy handwriting scrawled over them. No longer do I come home from a tiring day to find one of my best friends waiting outside my front door, with a huge grin on their face.

I can remember the time Lily taught the two of them to use a telephone, and every night for two weeks, the two of them walked down to the telephone box on the corner to phone me, just to say hi, because they were so excited that they knew how to use this "funny Muggle contraption." Even after the mania died down for them, one of them still always phoned me on a Friday night, whether or not we'd seen each other in the week, and we'd just talk about…well, anything, for a while. It was kind of like a tradition. I guess even traditions of friendship can be broken.

Lily's still as sweet as she ever was. She used to try to make me talk to them more, try to repair the cracks in our friendship without any glue. Eventually, she had to stop, but she always talks to me when she sees me, and sends owls whenever she gets time in between Healer shifts. They have a busy time of it now, what with so many casualties from the Death-Eaters.

Just a while ago, she had to confess to me something that made me realise just how bad things had become. She asked me to tell her what really happened on that night back in sixth year, when Sirius nearly killed Snape with a stupid prank. When I asked her why, she said that James and Sirius hat touched on it, and then had to admit that it was while they were talking about schooldays. As she put it, 'old wounds had been reopened.' After al those years, when I thought we had buried the hatchet over ever little quarrel we ever had, we're now acting more like enemies than friends.

Correction: _former_ friends.

I understand. Really, I do. I can see why suspicions are heightening, to the point that you don't even trust former best friends. If I were them, I wouldn't trust me either.

But the fact remains that we _were_ best friends.

We _were_ best friends for almost half my life. Not now.

They don't trust me any more.

I can see it in their eyes.

-&-

_How come we don't even talk no more?_

_And you don't even call no more?_

_We don't barely keep in touch at all, _

_And I don't even feel the same love when we hug no more. _

_And I heard it through the grape vine we're even beefing now,_

_After all the years we've been down,_

_Ain't no way, no how, this bullsh-t can't be true,_

_We're family, ain't a damn thing changed, unless it's_

_You. _

-&-

**A/N:** Sorry about the fact that this was completely pointless – it was just a reflective, spur-of-the-moment, bin-worthy thing. Just so you know, it has NOTHING to do with my other fic, TTOTH, so don't try to connect them. The song? Ignoring the bad grammar, it's a pretty emotive song by D12 and Eminem, called How Come. Normally I'm not into his music, but I caught this while flicking through music channels, and for some reason, I felt like writing. Admittedly, the fic is slightly AU, but it could happen. Feel free to review!


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